Collection: Historical Fiction

The New York Times bestselling author of The Diamond Eye and The Rose Code returns with a haunting and powerful story of female friendships and secrets in a Washington, DC, boardinghouse during the McCarthy era.

Washington, DC, 1950. Everyone keeps to themselves at Briarwood House, a down-at-the-heels all-female boardinghouse in the heart of the nation's capital where secrets hide behind white picket fences. But when the lovely, mysterious widow Grace March moves into the attic room, she draws her oddball collection of neighbors into unlikely friendship: poised English beauty Fliss, whose facade of perfect wife and mother covers gaping inner wounds; policeman's daughter Nora, who finds herself entangled with a shadowy gangster; frustrated baseball star Beatrice, whose career has come to an end along with the women's baseball league of WWII; and poisonous, gung-ho Arlene, who has thrown herself into McCarthy's Red Scare.

Grace's weekly attic-room dinner parties and window-brewed sun tea become a healing balm on all their lives, but she hides a terrible secret of her own. When a shocking act of violence tears the house apart, the Briar Club women must decide once and for all: who is the true enemy in their midst?

Capturing the paranoia of the McCarthy era and evoking the changing roles for women in postwar America, The Briar Club is an intimate and thrilling novel of secrets and loyalty put to the test.

A house of haunted history and ill temper. Make yourself at home in this beguiling novel of love, magic, and danger by Amazon Charts and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Charlie N. Holmberg.

Rhode Island, 1846. Estranged from his family, writer Merritt Fernsby is surprised when he inherits a remote estate in the Narragansett Bay. Though the property has been uninhabited for more than a century, Merritt is ready to call it home--until he realizes he has no choice. With its doors slamming shut and locking behind him, Whimbrel House is not about to let Merritt leave. Ever.

Hulda Larkin of the Boston Institute for the Keeping of Enchanted Rooms has been trained in taming such structures in order to preserve their historical and magical significance. She understands the dangers of bespelled homes given to tantrums. She advises that it's in Merritt's best interest to make Whimbrel House their ally. To do that, she'll need to move in, too.

Prepared as she is with augury, a set of magic tools, and a new staff trained in the uncanny, Hulda's work still proves unexpectedly difficult. She and Merritt grow closer as the investigation progresses, but the house's secrets run deeper than they anticipated. And the sentient walls aren't their only concern--something outside is coming for the enchantments of Whimbrel House, and it could be more dangerous than what rattles within.

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

From Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, a sweeping, romantic compulsively readable historical saga about a Duke's daughter--the perfect Victorian lady--who secretly moonlights as an amateur sleuth for high society's inner circle.

Victorian London was notorious for its pickpockets. But in the country houses of the elite, gentleman burglars, art thieves and con men preyed on the rich and titled. Wealthy victims--with their pride and reputation at stake--would never go to the police. What they needed was a society insider, one of their own, a person of discretion and finely tuned powers of observation, adept at navigating intrigue.

That person was Lady Mary Montagu Douglas Scott, the youngest child of Queen Victoria's close friends the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch. Bookish, fiercely intelligent, and a keen observer, Mary has deliberately cultivated a mousey persona that allows her to remain overlooked and significantly underestimated by all. It's the perfect cover for a sleuth, a role she stumbles into when trying to assist a close friend during a house party hosted by her parents at their stately Scottish home, Drumlanrig Castle.

It is at this party where Lady Mary also meets Colonel Walter Trefusis, a distinguished and extremely handsome war veteran. Tortured by memories of combat, Walter, like Mary, lives a double life, with a desk job in Whitehall providing a front for his role in the British Intelligence Service. The two form an unlikely alliance to solve a series of audacious crimes--and indulge in a highly charged on-off romance.

Pacy, romantic, and fun, A Most Intriguing Lady documents one remarkable woman's ability to be both the perfect lady, and a perfectly talented detective...and, of course, to find love too.

"A story about storytelling...Conjures up the grindhouse movie-making scene in 1970s Los Angeles and tracks an ambitious young man's flailing attempts to build a family and a career as a film arteest in that debased world...A book with a lot of heart." --Art Spiegelman, bestselling author of MAUS

Fourteen years in the making, renowned and beloved graphic novelist Sammy Harkham finally delivers his epic story of artistic ambition, the heartbreak it can bring, and what it means to be human

YOU CAN BURN IN HELL

Set primarily in Los Angeles in 1971, Blood of the Virgin is the story of twenty-seven-year-old Seymour, an Iraqi Jewish immigrant film editor who works for an exploitation film production company. Sammy Harkham brings us into the underbelly of Los Angeles during a crucial evolutionary moment in the industry from the last wheeze of the studio system to the rise of independent filmmaking.

Seymour, his wife, and their new baby struggle as he tries to make it in the movie business, writing screenplays on spec and pining for the chance to direct. When his boss buys one of his scripts for a project called Blood of the Virgin and gives Seymour the chance to direct it, what follows is a surreal, tragicomic making-of journey. As Seymour's blind ambition propels the movie, his home life grows increasingly fraught. The film's production becomes a means to spiral out into time and space, resulting in an epic graphic novel that explores the intersection of twentieth-century America, parenthood, sex, the immigrant experience, the dawn of early Hollywood, and, shockingly, the Holocaust.

Like a cosmic kaleidoscope, Blood of the Virgin shifts and evolves with each panel, widening its context as the story unfolds, building an intricate web of dreams and heartbreak, allowing the reader to zoom in to the novel's core: the bittersweet cost of coming into one's own.

With this extraordinary first volume in an epoch-making masterpiece, Neal Stephenson hacks into the secret histories of nations and the private obsessions of men, decrypting with dazzling virtuosity the forces that shaped this century.

In 1942, Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse--mathematical genius and young Captain in the U.S. Navy--is assigned to detachment 2702. It is an outfit so secret that only a handful of people know it exists, and some of those people have names like Churchill and Roosevelt. The mission of Waterhouse and Detachment 2702--commanded by Marine Raider Bobby Shaftoe-is to keep the Nazis ignorant of the fact that Allied Intelligence has cracked the enemy's fabled Enigma code. It is a game, a cryptographic chess match between Waterhouse and his German counterpart, translated into action by the gung-ho Shaftoe and his forces.

Fast-forward to the present, where Waterhouse's crypto-hacker grandson, Randy, is attempting to create a "data haven" in Southeast Asia--a place where encrypted data can be stored and exchanged free of repression and scrutiny. As governments and multinationals attack the endeavor, Randy joins forces with Shaftoe's tough-as-nails granddaughter, Amy, to secretly salvage a sunken Nazi submarine that holds the key to keeping the dream of a data haven afloat. But soon their scheme brings to light a massive conspiracy with its roots in Detachment 2702 linked to an unbreakable Nazi code called Arethusa. And it will represent the path to unimaginable riches and a future of personal and digital liberty...or to universal totalitarianism reborn.

A breathtaking tour de force, and Neal Stephenson's most accomplished and affecting work to date, Cryptonomicon is profound and prophetic, hypnotic and hyper-driven, as it leaps forward and back between World War II and the World Wide Web, hinting all the while at a dark day-after-tomorrow. It is a work of great art, thought and creative daring; the product of a truly iconoclastic imagination working with white-hot intensity.

The debut novella from one of contemporary fiction's most exciting young voices, now in a new edition.

Salem, Massachusetts, 1851: McGlue is in the hold, still too drunk to be sure of name or situation or orientation--he may have killed a man. That man may have been his best friend. Intolerable memory accompanies sobriety. A-sail on the high seas of literary tradition, Ottessa Moshfegh gives us a nasty heartless blackguard on a knife-sharp voyage through the fogs of recollection.

They said I've done something wrong? . . . And they've just left me down here to starve. They'll see this inanition and be so damned they'll fall to my feet and pass up hot cross buns slathered in fresh butter and beg I forgive them. All of them . . .: the entire world one by one. Like a good priest I'll pat their heads and nod. I'll dunk my skull into a barrel of gin.

The #1 bestselling Magic Tree House series is ready to whisk you away through time with Jack and Annie--this time to South America!

When the magic tree house whisks Jack and Annie to a mountainside, they are surprised to find farmers nearby. Then they learn that the farmer's baby llama has been stolen, and Jack and Annie vow to bring the little animal back to its owners. But the journey is treacherous--they must climb to the peak of Machu Picchu and climb back down in order to complete this mission. Jack and Annie have been on many dangerous travels, but can they survive this one?

Track the facts with Jack and Annie in the nonfiction companion to this book: Llamas and the Andes.

Did you know that there's a Magic Tree House book for every kid?
Magic Tree House: Perfect for readers who are just beginning chapter books
Merlin Missions: More challenging adventures for the experienced reader
Fact Trackers: Nonfiction companions to your favorite Magic Tree House adventures

If you're looking for Merlin Mission #34: Season of the Sandstorms, it was renumbered as part of the rebrand in 2017 as Merlin Mission #6.

Brilliant botanist Saffron Everleigh is back and ready for adventure in Kate Khavari's next mesmerizing historical mystery.

"A cleverly plotted puzzle" (Ashley Weaver) in the vein of Opium and Absinthe, this second installment is perfect for fans of Rhys Bowen and Sujata Massey.

1920s London isn't the ideal place for a brilliant woman with lofty ambitions. But research assistant Saffron Everleigh is determined to beat the odds in a male-dominated field at the University College of London. Saffron embarks on her first research study alongside the insufferably charming Dr. Michael Lee, traveling the countryside with him in response to reports of poisonings. But when Detective Inspector Green is given a case with a set of unusual clues, he asks for Saffron's assistance.

The victims, all women, received bouquets filled with poisonous flowers. Digging deeper, Saffron discovers that the bouquets may be more than just unpleasant flowers-- there may be a hidden message within them, revealed through the use of the old Victorian practice of floriography. A dire message, indeed, as each woman who received the flowers has turned up dead.

Alongside Dr. Lee and her best friend, Elizabeth, Saffron trails a group of suspects through a dark jazz club, a lavish country estate, and a glittering theatre, delving deeper into a part of society she thought she'd left behind forever.

Will Saffron be able to catch the killer before they send their next bouquet, or will she find herself with fatal flowers of her own in Kate Khavari's second intoxicating installment.

The first-ever graphic novel adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world's great anti-war books.

An American classic and one of the world's seminal antiwar books, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five is faithfully presented in graphic novel form for the first time from Eisner Award-winning writer Ryan North (How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler) and Eisner Award-nominated artist Albert Monteys (Universe!).

Listen: Billy Pilgrim has...
...read Kilgore Trout
...opened a successful optometry business
...built a loving family
...witnessed the firebombing of Dresden
...traveled to the planet Tralfamadore
...met Kurt Vonnegut
...come unstuck in time.

Billy Pilgrim's journey is at once a farcical look at the horror and tragedy of war where children are placed on the frontlines and die (so it goes), and a moving examination of what it means to be fallibly human.

Clueless meets Bridgerton in this spicy opposites-attract Regency romance from "a must-read author" (Jodi Picoult, #1 New York Times bestselling author).

Lady Vesper Lyndhurst is beautiful, clever, and popular. Afforded every luxury as a duke's daughter, she fills her days with friends, intrigues, and a self-professed knack for matchmaking. She may have sworn off love for herself, but she is rather excellent at arranging it.

Faced with an insolvent estate, the Duke of Greydon has no choice but to return to England in a final attempt to revive his family's fortunes. He's been gone for years, happy to have escaped his mother and the petty circles of the ton. To his dismay, not much has changed, including the beautiful and vexing heiress next door.

But when an accident of fate traps the friends-turned-enemies in an attic together, the explosive attraction between them becomes impossible to ignore and even harder to resist. They are total opposites and their lives don't align in the slightest, but fate, the ultimate matchmaker, appears to have other plans . . .

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
SHORT-LISTED FOR THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE
OVER ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD WORLDWIDE

The elegant and compelling novel about a Pakistani man's abandonment of his high-flying life in New York--an extraordinary portrait of a divided and yet ultimately indivisible world in America post-9/11.

At a café table in Lahore, a bearded Pakistani man converses with an uneasy American stranger. He begins to tell the story of a man named Changez, who is living an immigrant's dream of America. At the top of his class at Princeton, he is snapped up by an elite valuation firm. He thrives on the energy of New York, and his budding romance with elegant, beautiful Erica promises entry into Manhattan society at the same exalted level once occupied by his own family back in Lahore. But in the wake of September 11, Changez finds his position in his adopted city suddenly overturned, and his relationship with Erica shifting. And Changez's own identity is in seismic shift as well, unearthing allegiances more fundamental than money, power, and maybe even love.

What if you could avenge your own murder? A brilliant young woman gets a second chance at life in this debut YA tale of vengeance, court intrigue, and romance, inspired by classic Chinese tropes.

"An incredible addition to the classic Chinese court intrigue genre. A Bright Heart is smart, subversive, and certainly swoony."
--Chloe Gong, #1 New York Times bestselling author of These Violent Delights

Mingshin outsmarted three princes to help the man she loved become king. But she doesn't see Ren's betrayal coming, not until she's lying in a pool of her own blood on the palace steps.

As she's dying, Mingshin makes a desperate plea to the gods to turn back time and give her a chance to make things right.

Mingshin wakes up two years earlier, her prayer granted, and swears two things: Ren will never become king, and she will never fall in love again.

But the timeline in this life has changed: a dignitary gifted with dark magic is threatening her kingdom's peace, and Ren's thirst for power runs deeper than Mingshin could have imagined.

She finds herself allying with Jieh, another contender for the throne. Mingshin knows better than anyone not to give her heart to a prince. But in the viper's nest of the royal court, she and Jieh prove a phenomenal team. Can Mingshin avert the catastrophe of her past by once again learning to trust...and maybe even love?

Master storyteller Kate Chenli introduces a singular YA heroine in this vividly rendered and utterly original new young adult fantasy books series.

A spellbinding, tension-filled page-turner with a bold heroine, A Bright Heart will appeal to fans of romance books for teens like The Shadows Between Us by Tricia Levenseller, or other YA books that feature rich world-building, captivating romance, and a quest for revenge.

Don't miss Elizabeth Wein's stunning new novel, Stateless

The beloved #1 New York Times bestseller, a "fiendishly plotted" (New York Times) "heart-in-your mouth adventure" (Washington Post), that "will take wing and soar into your heart" (Laurie Halse Anderson) -- now with a new bonus chapter.

October 11th, 1943 -- A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. Its pilot and passenger are best friends. One of the girls has a chance at survival. The other has lost the game before it's barely begun.

When "Verity" is arrested by the Gestapo, she's sure she doesn't stand a chance. As a secret agent captured in enemy territory, she's living a spy's worst nightmare. Her Nazi interrogators give her a simple choice: reveal her mission or face a grisly execution.

As she intricately weaves her confession, Verity uncovers her past, how she became friends with the pilot Maddie, and why she left Maddie in the wrecked fuselage of their plane. On each new scrap of paper, Verity battles for her life, confronting her views on courage, failure and her desperate hope to make it home. But will trading her secrets be enough to save her from the enemy?

A universally acclaimed Edgar Award winner, Code Name Verity is a visceral read of danger, resolve, and survival that shows just how far true friends will go to save each other. This updated edition features a brand-new short story, essay from the author, a discussion guide, and more.

**Don't miss Elizabeth Wein's next masterpiece, Stateless, available for preorder now!

#1 New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Laurens returns with a story of two people thrown together on a journey of discovery that defines what each most want of life, love, and family.A gentleman wishing to buy a fabulous horse and a lady set on protecting her family find common ground while pursuing a thief who upends both of their plans.

Nicholas Cynster rides up to Aisby Grange determined to secure the stallion known as The Barbarian for his family's Thoroughbred breeding stable, only to be turned away by the owner's daughter. Nicholas retreats, but is not about to be denied by any lady, no matter how startlingly beautiful and distracting.

Lady Adriana Sommerville knows Nicholas will be back and resigns herself to having to manage his interaction with her aging father. She successfully negotiates that potential quagmire only, at the very last moment, to discover the horse is missing.

Stunned, Addie insists on setting out in pursuit and is not so silly as to refuse Nicholas's support.

But as they follow on the heels of The Barbarian, their adventures and encounters open both their eyes to the prospect of a more enduring partnership. Yet before they can follow that trail farther and before they can lay hands on the horse, through shock after shock, their pursuit uncovers a complicated plot that strips away masks and rescripts everything Addie and her siblings thought they knew about the Sommerville family.

A classic historical romance of adventure, discovery, and reconciliation set in the English countryside. A Cynster Next Generation novel. A full-length historical romance of 103,000 words.

The journey that began with The Shadow of What Was Lostreaches its spectacular conclusion in The Light of All That Falls, the final chapter of the Licanius Trilogy by acclaimed epic fantasy author James Islington.
After a savage battle, the Boundary is whole again -- but it may be too late. Banes now stalk the lands of Andarra, and the Venerate have gathered their armies for a final, crushing blow.
In Ilin Illan, Wirr fights to maintain a precarious alliance between Andarra's factions of power. With dark forces closing in on the capital, if he cannot succeed, the war is lost.
Imprisoned and alone in a strange land, Davian is pitted against the remaining Venerate. As he desperately tries to keep them from undoing Asha's sacrifice, he struggles to come to terms with his own path and all he has learned about Caeden, the friend he chose to set free.
Finally, Caeden is confronted with the reality of a plan laid centuries ago -- heartbroken at how it started and devastated by how it must end.

The Licanius TrilogyThe Shadow of What Was LostAn Echo of Things to ComeThe Light of All That Falls
"Love The Wheel of Time? This is about to become your new favorite series." - B&N SciFi & Fantasy Blog

The #1 bestselling chapter book series of all time celebrates 25 years with new covers and a new, easy-to-use numbering system!

Goal! Jack and Annie have tickets to one of the most exciting soccer games ever--the 1970 World Cup! They are sure the famous soccer player Pelé will tell them a "secret of greatness." The game is nonstop action and the stands are packed. But how will they find Pelé in a crowd of 100,000 soccer fans? Have they failed their mission? Or will the answer come when they least expect it?

Formerly numbered as Magic Tree House #52, the title of this book is now Magic Tree House Merlin Mission #24: Soccer on Sunday.

Did you know that there's a Magic Tree House book for every kid?

Magic Tree House: Adventures with Jack and Annie, perfect for readers who are just beginning chapter books
Merlin Missions: More challenging adventures for the experienced reader
Super Edition: A longer and more dangerous adventure
Fact Trackers: Nonfiction companions to your favorite Magic Tree House adventures